SLAVIC STUDIES SINCE 1939
In the period of tension which followed the Munich Agreement of 1938,
the opening of World War II, and the period of Nazi-Soviet cooperation,
Slavic studies in the United States, as well as the studies of the
neighboring East European countries began to receive more serious
consideration. A period of more active interest began. Because
developments during World War II have continued since the ending of
hostilities, it is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between the
War and post-war period, largely because of the Cold War and the
establishment of the Iron Curtain or, better yet, the recognition that
there were tremendous gaps between the thinking of the Western free
world and the Soviet dominated areas.
On the surface, the reactions in 1939 differed little from those in
1914. This is well illustrated by the fact that at the annual opening
exercises of Columbia University in 1939, President Nicholas Murray
Butler repeated large extracts from his talk of 1914 on a similar
occasion. Yet, the attention of the American public was more sharply
focused on events in Eastern Europe than it had been in 1914 and the
colleges and universities during the preceding twenty-five years had
provided a larger nucleus of trained men. The events of the first months
showed, however, that far too many of these trained men were still bound
to the thinking of the past and were not prepared to take into account
recent developments on a global, and even on an East European, scale.
Such short-sightedness prevented adequate consideration of the situation
as it unfolded day by day.
The old myth that Russia was a single country inhabited by a single
people, with boundaries defined long ago, proved remarkably vital.
President Wilson’s formulation of a Russian policy in 1918, recognizing
the need of the Russian people to choose their own form of government,
was still accepted and even the colleges and universities paid little
attention to the structure of the Soviet Union as it saw itself. The
American people and their government continued to use the word Russian
as a synonym for Soviet Union and were puzzled, as they had been in
1917, by the movements that arose in the territory. As in 1917, Finland
stood out as a distinct nationality, but the popular reaction to the
annexation of the Baltic republics was marked as much by confusion as by
indignation. Supposed “experts” even found grim relief in the fact that
after 1939 the borders of Germany and “Russia” were touching and this
seemed to confirm the validity of the pre-1914 frontiers.
Thus the crisis tended to emphasize again the importance of Russian
history and the Russian language. In a sense this was justified. The
force of events had made the Russian language predominant in Eastern
Europe and the leaders of the USSR were almost exclusively Russian,
except the Georgian Stalin, who regularly espoused the Great Russian
cause for foreign consumption. All tendencies to stress the opponents of
Moscow and their cultures ended abruptly with the Nazi attack on the
Soviet Union and continued in the following period of Soviet-democratic
cooperation. Such emphasis on the Russian character of the USSR was
furthered by many of the Russian emigres, who at the height of the war,
were only too ready, whatever their political convictions, to serve the
cause of Mother Russia, a policy which was fostered by Stalin’s clever
use of Russian slogans.
Many British and American authorities zealously compared the German
attack on the Soviets in 1941 to the German advance in 1918 after the
Soviet Revolution. A bitter propaganda attack was started, both inside
and outside the universities, against all national groups from the old
Russian empire having separatist aspirations. The old equation that all
who were not pro-Communist were pro-Nazi was repeated, especially after
1941. The Ukrainians received the worst criticism but they were not
alone. Even though the United States government refused to recognize the
seizure of the Baltic states, President Roosevelt acceded to the demands
of Stalin and allowed him to sign the Atlantic Charter. They did not
grant this to the representatives of the occupied countries, lest they
break the friendship with that great anti-Nazi power—“Russia.” Under
such conditions, lectures arranged by Professor Manning at Columbia
University in the spring of 1941, with the aid of the Ukrainian National
Association and a number of distinguished professors of Eastern Europe,
evoked severe criticism from many anti-Nazi radio commentators who
followed the whims of popular sentiment.
The chief counterweight to this tendency was the arrival in the United
States of many distinguished scholars who had escaped the holocaust of
Nazi rule and the direct impact of Soviet power on Slavic scholarship.
The circumstances of the peaceful occupation of Prague in the spring of
1939 made it difficult, if not impossible, for many Czech professors to
leave. The chief exceptions were Professor Otokar Odlozilik and
Professor Roman Jakobson who were outside the country when the storm
struck.
The Poles were more fortunate, for during the crucial weeks of the
destruction of Poland, many of their leading scholars had been able to
escape north into Lithuania or south into Romania, from which countries
they made their way to the west. When they arrived in the United States,
the Polish organizations, working with the Polish Legation in
Washington, found funds to allow them to continue their scientific work.
To furnish a center for them and keep them from being lost in American
life, an American branch of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in
Krakow was formed under the distinguished historian, Professor Oskar
Halecki. This was later reorganized as the Polish Institute of Arts and
Sciences in the United States. During the war years, it received
sufficient funds to publish a quarterly journal, the _Bulletin of the
Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America_, and to issue several
scholarly works on Polish subjects. Still later, when the Germans pushed
westward, other Polish scholars, such as Professor Waclaw Lednicki and
Professor Manfred Kridl, succeeded in reaching the United States. Most
of these men have since found places in the American scientific world.
Few distinguished Russian scholars arrived at this time and there was
only one Ukrainian, Professor Nicholas Chubaty, who almost by accident,
arrived in the United States for a meeting of _Pax Romana_, an
international organization for social action under the auspices of the
Catholic Church, and remained here after the outbreak of hostilities.
The Southern Slavs and Bulgarians fared even less well.
War produced, at first, relatively little effect upon Slavic studies as
a whole or Russian in particular. It was not until 1940 that there came
any appreciable increase in the number of students. Yet the general
reaction of the public differed from that of 1914. Despite the growth of
anti-Nazi and even anti-German feeling, there was no attempt to exclude
German from the curricula of any important institution. There was no
decline of students, but rather an increase. The same was true of
Russian, and long before 1941, the governing bodies of institutions
without Slavic departments began to think of introducing them. We can
only mention certain instances of this development.[38]
Professor Alfred Senn, a Swiss philologist from the University of
Kaunas, who held several positions in other institutions, became
Professor of German Philology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1938.
During World War II, he offered courses in Russian, and in 1948 became
Professor of Balto-Slavic Philology and head of the Department of
Balto-Slavic Studies. As such, he was able to group around him a number
of refugee scholars.
In 1939, Cornell University invited Dr. Jack Posin to teach Russian and
in 1941 named Ernest J. Simmons Assistant Professor of English and
Russian. In 1942 Simmons was named chairman of a newly established
department of Russian, and, in 1945, was promoted to a full
professorship. Dr. Posin, meanwhile had transferred to the University of
Iowa, in 1942, as Assistant Professor of Russian.
At Syracuse University, Professor Albert Menut of the Department of
Romance Languages, a student of Russian, was able to develop courses in
Russian and to inaugurate a Russian program.
The extent of Slavic development during this period is revealed in a
survey conducted by Professor Arthur P. Coleman in 1945, which showed
eighty-one institutions offering courses in Russian and eleven in
Polish. At the same time, there were 147 schools and colleges offering
courses in Slavic history and culture. The increased interest in history
seems all to the good, but it can be noted that well over fifty
institutions offering work on Russian and Slavic subjects lacked
collateral courses in the languages. This, however, was a far smaller
proportion than existed in 1914. Furthermore, it was not a peculiarity
of the United States, for as late as 1924 in Germany there were
professors of East European history who looked askance at students
wasting their time on linguistic studies, for they preferred to have
them work from translations.
To secure a staff for the American expansion, particularly in Russian,
offered many difficulties. There had been almost no immigration of
Russians for many years and the bulk of the possible instructors were
persons who had come to the United States shortly after World War I.
These were the only ones with any special training, for during the
period between the wars, few young Russians from educated families had
seriously considered doing advanced work in Russian, even though there
were many with knowledge of the educational system. An outstanding
exception was Oleg Maslenikov who, at this time, joined the staff of the
University of California.
The chief emphasis, in this period of expansion, was on a speaking
knowledge of the language. Wherever it was possible, instruction was
begun under the supervision of some member of the faculty with a
knowledge of Russian, while much of the actual work was done by native
assistants. This combination, originally applied to Russian by Professor
Patrick, became the general rule and was successful where it was
intelligently used.
Unlike the situation in World War I, the United States government
actively encouraged these studies and assigned draftees as well as
volunteers to special units for the study of languages, and special
language schools were established for the Armed Services throughout the
country. This created still another problem. Wartime conscription
reduced the number of students alarmingly causing nearly all colleges
and universities to become dependent upon government funds for their
continued functioning. The larger institutions, with their highly
developed laboratories and opportunities for scientific training,
received most of the students to be trained in technical subjects. The
government, therefore, often opened language centers in smaller
institutions, many of which lacked necessary libraries and, in some
localities, secured a proper staff of instructors only with difficulty.
Thus, Bulgarian was assigned to the University of Denver, which was
fortunate to find in that city an educated Bulgarian lady. She agreed to
help, although she had never seriously considered teaching Bulgarian,
and was compelled to prepare most of her materials from original
Bulgarian texts which she owned.
With the reduction of the armed forces after the War, many of these
courses were suspended, although both the Navy and Air Force still send
selected students to various universities. The Army, however, has
established its own language school at the Presidio of Monterey. With a
well selected civilian faculty, many of them former members of
university staffs, this is rapidly becoming one of the best institutions
of its kind for the study of the Slavic as well as other languages. It
is preparing, for its own use, its own courses and it promises to become
an important testing ground for Slavic and East European studies. In
addition to this, Russian has been introduced into the curriculum of
such service academies as West Point, where the work which was
tentatively started after World War I is now on a definite and secure
basis.
This period, too, saw the beginning of the organization of the so-called
area studies. In these, the history, geography and economics of the
given area are stressed. Such efforts represent an attempt to overcome
the gaps which have developed between historical, literary and cultural
studies through the departmentalizing of institutions. But as they have
developed, historical and economic elements have been stressed more than
cultural and literary. This was perhaps natural. However, during the
War, at the height of the enthusiasm for the USSR, studies of this kind
tended to accent the Soviet version of the relations between the
nationalities of the Soviet Union, and the old Russian concept of a
single Russian people. There was thus, a perpetuation of the previous
confusion in American thinking; and, it was not overcome even when the
Ukrainian and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics were included
as charter members in the United Nations.
The greatest single deterrent to Slavic study was the almost
simultaneous death of nearly all the older leaders of Slavic
scholarship. To list but a few of the more prominent: Professor John
Dyneley Prince, who had retired from Columbia in 1937, died in 1945 at
the age of 77; Professor Alexander Kaun, of the University of
California, died at the age of 55 in 1944; Professor George Z. Patrick,
of the same institution, died at the age of 63 in 1945; Professor Henry
Lanz, of Stanford, died in 1945 at the age of 59; Professor Samuel
Hazzard Cross, of Harvard, died in 1944 at the age of 55.[39] Thus,
within three years practically all the older men in the field of Slavic
literature died except Professor George Rapall Noyes and Professor
Manning. The losses in history were not so severe but Professor Samuel
N. Harper, of the University of Chicago, died in 1943 at the age of 61.
As a result Professor Robert J. Kerner, for many years at the University
of California, was the only person remaining in the field of history who
had become prominent before 1914. This, in a sense, sharply delineates
the earlier period of Slavic studies. Today the leaders of Slavic
scholarship belong definitely to a different generation, one which is
certainly better trained but does not necessarily have the range of
interests which often marked the older men.
Another, somewhat different, development needs to be noted. During the
first years of the War, when England was severely strained by the war
and the bombing of her cities, it seemed that the _Slavonic and East
European Review_ would be compelled to suspend publication. To meet the
crisis it was decided that the journal would continue under the
direction of the American contributing editors. Thus, until his untimely
death, Professor Cross was the practical editor of the magazine,
assisted by Professor Leonid I. Strakhovsky. Issues appeared with both
an American and British volume number. After the War when the British
expressed a desire to resume publication, the American editors expanded
their numbers and, with the aid of the Joint Committee on Slavic
Studies, established the American Association for the Advancement of
Slavic Studies to publish _The American Slavic and East European
Review_. The present committee of scholars in charge of the publication
is Professor Abram Bergson of Harvard; Professor George B. Cressey of
Syracuse; Professor H. H. Fisher of Stanford; Professor Alexander
Gerschenkron of Harvard; Professor Oskar Halecki of Fordham University;
Professor Roman Jakobson of Harvard; Professor Michael Karpovich of
Harvard; Professor Robert J. Kerner of California; Professor W. Lednicki
of California; Professor Philip Mosely of the Council for Foreign
Relations; Professor Geroid Robinson of Columbia; Professor Alfred Senn
of the University of Pennsylvania; Professor Ernest J. Simmons of
Columbia; Professor S. H. Thomson of the University of Colorado;
Professor George Vernadsky of Yale, and Professor Francis J. Whitfield
of the University of California. Nothing better illustrates the way in
which Slavic studies has developed than this list, for the overwhelming
majority of these scholars represent those institutions where
departments had existed before World War I.
_The American Slavic and East European Review_ is the leading
publication in the United States for Slavic studies. However, other
journals, such as the _Publication of the Modern Language Association_,
_Speculum_, the _Journal of Central European History_ (edited by
Professor S. H. Thomson) and the _Journal of East European History_
(edited by the University of Chicago), also contain specialized
articles. As a matter of fact, there are very few of the more
specialized journals which during the past years have not included
articles on some aspect of the East European historical and cultural
world.
There are also several quarterlies published in the United States which
deal with East Europe. Among these are: _The Russian Review_, edited by
Professor D. von Mohrenschildt of Dartmouth College, originally founded
with the aid of the Russian Student Fund; the _Ukrainian Quarterly_,
edited by Professor Nicholas Chubaty for the Ukrainian Congress
Committee of America; and, the _Polish Review_, published by the Polish
Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. We may also place here the
_Armenian Review_, edited by Mr. Reuben Darbinian for the Hairenik
Association (Boston, Mass.). These are scholarly journals devoted to the
language, culture and history of the people for whom they are compiled,
which cannot be overlooked in any survey of the intellectual output for
East European subjects. There are also many smaller organs and bulletins
of societies, often with world wide connection, which serve a more
specialized political program. They are important for their frequent
opposition to the accepted viewpoint of history and culture, but are
essentially more political than scholarly in its content. As has been
stressed again and again, Slavic studies have developed so largely under
the influence of the imperial Russian and German traditions that truth
has often seemed to be merely what was decided in pre-World War I St.
Petersburg and Berlin.
The Slavic group of the Modern Language Association of America is still
the leading scientific center for philologists and students of
literature in the broadest sense of the word. It holds a yearly meeting,
concurrent with the Modern Language Association, and is divided into two
parts, literary and philological. It offers the best possibilities for
the developing of personal contacts among more serious students. In time
it should become a section parallel to that of the English, Romance and
Germanic sections but the day when there are sufficient members is still
in the future.
For many years there was no special section in the American Historical
Association and its allied societies, devoted to the study of Slavic or
East European history. This did not mean that the subject was ignored,
for numerous papers were included in the regular program and, many times
there were entire meetings devoted to Slavic problems. However, in 1955
a special conference on Slavic and East European studies was formed to
provide continuity and concentration in the subject. This activity will
undoubtedly expand in future years.
Another organization serving Slavic scholars is the American Association
of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, formed by Professor
Arthur P. Coleman, formerly of Columbia University and now president of
Alliance College. Founded in 1941 to parallel such groups as the
American Association of Teachers of German, this organization exists to
bring together teachers of the subject, rather than to promote research.
The association is divided both by languages and by localities. It has
appealed to many emigre scholars, and this has led it to a more definite
anti-Communist position than many other groups, which have often leaned
over backward to appear impartial and unprejudiced. It has now
established the _Slavic and East European Journal_.
The ranks of emigre scholars, which had started to grow with the arrival
of many Poles in 1939, were augmented after 1945 by the arrival of many
displaced persons. These men, for the most part Ukrainians and often of
considerable intellectual stature, found themselves in an unenviable
position chiefly because of their inability to speak English. The
majority were already mature or even elderly. They had escaped the
holocaust caused by that interpretation of the Yalta agreements which
had led to the forcible return of many refugees to the Soviet Union.
However, they were aided by their own ability to make the most of
opportunities given them by the freakish events of the last months of
the War in Europe. In and out of the DP camps, they had created their
own scholarly groups in Germany and Austria. Thus, the Ukrainian Free
University which had been established first in Vienna and then moved to
Prague after World War I, was now reopened in Munich. An UNRRA
university was started in the same city. A less formal Baltic university
was established in Hamburg in the British zone. At one time there were
plans to transfer this latter institution to Canada, but the plan
miscarried. However, many of the leading professors of these
institutions have come to the United States and Canada and are being
absorbed into the American educational world. In the beginning, many of
these men were compelled to take non-intellectual positions. Others
found places in institutions (usually Catholic, of either the Western or
Eastern Rites) educating their compatriots, at schools such as Alliance
College, and the Ukrainian Catholic St. Basil’s College in Stamford,
Connecticut.[40]
In addition to these institutions, the displaced persons opened many
more elementary schools on all educational levels to train their fellow
countrymen whose education had been interrupted by the War and the
limitations imposed on general education, both by the Soviets and the
Nazis.
By a series of fortunate coincidences, the majority of the
administration of the old Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, and a
large part of its membership were saved in the DP camps. There, this
society, which had been suppressed by the Soviets in 1939 after their
occupation of Lviv, was again revived under the same officers in Munich.
The center was later moved to Sarcelles near Paris. Many of its members
have come to the United States, and while the headquarters are still in
Sarcelles, American and Canadian branches have been established in New
York and Toronto and are working actively, publishing the results of
their studies in both Ukrainian and English.
At about the same time, other Ukrainians in the camps, perhaps more
often from eastern Ukraine, formed the Ukrainian Free Academy of
Sciences. Its members have also come, in numbers, to America and are
functioning in New York and Winnipeg. They publish the quarterly
_Annals_ in English, greatly aided by the East European Fund set up by
the Ford Foundation.
These two groups, which parallel the Polish Institute of Arts and
Sciences in America, have counterparts in the Francis Skorina Society
(Kryvian), and the White Ruthenian Institute of Arts and Sciences in the
U.S., the Croatian Academy of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Serb
National University in Chicago. The Masaryk Institute, formed by a group
of Americans and Czechs before the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, is
in a sense similar but it has also the features of the Kosciuszko
Foundation. It is too early to know what position these societies will
take in Slavic programs of the future, but their outstanding individuals
are securing recognition in American colleges and universities. Whether
they will ultimately form a branch of this general educational field or
whether they will develop into more highly specialized groups drawing
upon interested Americans of non-Slavic origin, cannot now be answered
with certainty. Some of them are undoubtedly ephemeral but some have had
a long cultural tradition and can be expected, in their new environment,
to exercise an influence out of proportion to their numbers.
Many of the newly arrived scholars are already playing an important role
in the development of Slavic studies and in the reorganization of some
of the older departments. It would take too long to list all who have
found important posts. Professor Oskar Halecki is developing the study
of Polish history at Fordham University. Professor Roman Smal-Stocki at
Marquette University has taken a prominent part in the formation of a
Slavic Institute there. By such publications as _The Nationality Problem
of the Soviet Union_, he is helping acquaint the American public with
the dangers of open, as well as secret, Communism in the United States,
besides exposing the inaccuracy of the American concept that all
citizens of the former Russian empire are Russians by blood, feeling and
culture. There is, in addition, the work of Professor George Shevelov in
comparative philology at Columbia University, and that of Professor
Dmytro Chyzhevsky at Harvard, which emphasizes the older Ukrainian
literature.
The rise of recently arrived Slavic scholars and the influence of
transplanted organizations of Slavic scholarship was earnestly needed by
American Slavic scholarship and, in fact was forced by the surprising
number of deaths during the war period. Development in the different
institutions has been conditioned, of course, by the general traditions
and spirit of each school. While growth has been rapid, it cannot be
said that all results have been unqualifiedly happy or successful,
partly because of the sporadic interest by both faculty and students in
the field as a whole. Slavic subjects (not to speak of the closely
associated non-Slavic languages like the Ural-Altaic groups, modern
Greek and Romanian, all of which have strong Slavic overtones) are
extremely broad and diverse. Yet for the average American student,
Slavic and Russian are too exclusively identified. Even interest in
Russian has been chiefly limited to either pure philology or, more
frequently, Russian literature of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.
As an example, consider Columbia University’s efforts to secure a
balanced course. When Professor Ernest J. Simmons joined the staff, in
1946, as professor of Russian literature and Chairman of the Department
of Slavic Languages, as it was now renamed, he hoped to build a broad
program. The department was informally divided into four sections:
Slavic and Russian philology; Czech and Slovak; Polish, and South
Slavic. To help defray expenses, the university, reversing the policy
formulated by President Butler after the unpleasant developments of the
World War I period, sought from the lesser Slavic lands, a yearly
subsidy to pay the salary of a distinguished professor. This was easily
secured from both Poland and Czechoslovakia and Professor Roman Jakobson
was appointed the Thomas G. Masaryk Professor of Slavic Philology, and
Professor Manfred Kridl was named the Adam Mickiewicz Professor of
Polish. Arrangements were made without considering developments which
might be caused by the Communists, and similar agreements were made with
many countries of the Near and Middle East. The experiment was hardly
satisfactory. After the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the new regime
imposed such conditions that maintenance of the chair was impossible.
Poland more slowly followed the same course. Despite other arrangements
with less possible political interference, made by the university, the
number of students in the Czech, Slovak, Polish and South Slavic
sections of the department has been scarcely larger than it was between
the wars. There was no attempt, at Columbia, to break the traditional
separation between the faculties of philosophy and political science, or
establish a single department for all Slavic, or even all Russian,
instruction. Russian history, under Professor Geroid Robinson, continued
to develop as it had, just as other areas of study continued under the
faculty of political science.
Development at Harvard was somewhat different. There, after the interim
period following the death of Professor Cross, Professor Roman Jakobson
came to Cambridge in 1949, with a number of experts in Slavic fields. At
about the same time, work in all Slavic subjects was, at least
partially, consolidated and Professor Karpovich was named to the Curt
Hugo Reisinger Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures, in addition to
his work in history.
At the University of California development was severely affected by the
death of Professors Patrick and Kaun, until the staff was rebuilt by the
appointment of Professor Gleb Struve and Waclaw Lednicki, and the
promotion of Professor Oleg Maslenikov.[41] There was no attempt to
integrate the work in history under Professor Robert J. Kerner, although
the department broadened with an increase of students.
In the same period, Slavic studies at Catholic universities, especially
those administered by the Society of Jesus, have been greatly
strengthened. While Georgetown University, alone, achieved standing in
language instruction following World War I, the situation has changed
since World War II and Fordham, Notre Dame, and Marquette are all
setting new standards in the range of courses offered and in the
thoroughness of their work. These institutions have also contributed by
studying the contrasts and similarities between the Russian Empire and
the Soviet Union, with emphasis on the nationality problem of
Russia-USSR. Numerous conferences have been held and addresses have been
published.
Marquette University, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where there is a
considerable population of Slavic descent, has established a Slavic
Institute under the direction of Professor Roman Smal-Stocki. In the
announcement of its first publication, _The Doctrine of Anarchism of
Michael A. Bakunin_, the Institute stated its goal:
... to strengthen the knowledge of Slavic matters and problems in
America through this special series of monographs on Slavic nations,
their history, culture, civilization and their great personalities.
Simultaneously we would like to cultivate through original research,
the Slavic heritage of more than twelve million of America’s
citizens. According to our anniversary motto, we dedicate the series
to the “Pursuit of Truth to Make Men Free” and in this spirit we
shall approach all Slavic nations, large and small, with a deep
sense of their fundamental equality, disregarding all Slavic
imperialisms and colonialisms, and with a warm respect for their
fine heritage, which has become a component part of our American
culture and civilization.
Scholarly purposes of this sort, which respect the culture of the Slavic
peoples apart from political dominations, and the avowal to study
changes of Slavic culture in the New World, bid fair to mark a new era
for such studies.
Leading American colleges as a whole have introduced Russian into their
curricula. Most courses are taught by men trained while in American
government service during World War II, who have continued their
preparation in graduate programs at one of the longer established Slavic
departments.[42]
Much of the recent development in Slavic scholarship must be credited to
the work of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies. Started before World
War II by the American Council of Learned Societies, a committee was
established in the Slavic area, based on the prototype which existed to
aid the reorganization and development of studies in Chinese. Later the
Social Science Research Council established a committee for the
development of Slavic studies in the social sciences. The committees of
these organizations combined to form the Joint Committee, which was able
to secure large subsidies from foundations for the development of
courses, faculty salaries and scholarship grants.
The initiative of this committee, working with influential and alert
university officials, has aided the expansion of wartime area studies
into institutes, organized programs and centers of research and
training. This approach to academic organization is, in a sense,
borrowed from European university organization which used institutes,
such as the Slavic Institute in Prague, as a means of coordinating the
activities of previously isolated chairs. In the United States, where
the organization of courses led to the establishment of cohesive
departments, the institutes became a means of coordinating departments
which were in different faculties, sometimes in isolation and even
competition, especially in courses on national cultures which almost of
necessity impinge on history.
In addition, the institutes had a more practical side, for along with
the development of pure research, they aspired to supply trained men and
women for special technical work in both government and civilian
enterprises. We can scarcely summarize this activity better than by
quoting the purposes of the Russian Institute as reported in the
Announcement of the Faculty of Philosophy of Columbia University, for
1957 (p. 146):
The Russian Institute, established in 1946 with the assistance of
the Rockefeller Foundation, has two major objectives: the
development of _research_ in the social sciences and the humanities,
as they relate to Russia, and the training of a limited number of
well-qualified Americans for scholarly or professional careers, as
Russian-Soviet specialists in business, in finance, in journalism,
in various branches of government service, and in academic research
and teaching in the social sciences and in literature. It is
believed that such prospective specialists should acquire (a) a
broad and thoroughly integrated knowledge of Russia and the Soviet
Union; (b) command of a well-developed specialty in a selected
academic discipline, as applied to that country; and (c) a broad
training in the more general aspects of this selected discipline. To
this end, each candidate for the two year certificate will pursue
certain survey courses on Russia, while giving special emphasis,
within the Institute, to one of five fields: Russian history,
economy, government and law, foreign relations, the social and
ideological aspects of literature. At the same time, the candidate
will be expected to follow outside the Institute, a parallel program
of work in the graduate school or department of the University that
is most closely allied with his Russian specialty within the
Institute.
All of these institutes, wherever they have been founded and whether
they are Institutes, Studies or Programs have been faced with the same
fundamental dilemma: how is the term “Russia” to be defined? A certain
number of scholars, who have been labeled by Professor Lev Dobriansky of
Georgetown University as the “Russia Firsters,” have stubbornly insisted
that it was their duty to devote themselves to the study of Russia in
the traditional sense of the word, i.e. the consideration of Russian
culture, history and economics without regard to the linguistically and
culturally heterogeneous character of the old Russian empire. To
students of this school, every person within the old Russian empire is a
Russian, whether their studies concern economics or concentration camps.
They refuse to separate the statistics in any way that might show
increased pressure on the non-Russian peoples by the Soviet government.
They feel themselves free to do this, even though Stalin himself after
World War II specifically attributed the victory of the Soviet Union to
the loyalty of the Great Russians, i.e. Russians in the narrower sense
of the word.
This attitude, despite the prominence of its supporters, has been
steadily opposed by those students who stress the cultural and
linguistic differences which existed in the old Russian empire as well
as in the modern Soviet Union. These students emphasize the similarities
between the Russian and Soviet concepts of dominance of the Great
Russians, and argue for a proper recognition of the oppressed nations of
the USSR who sought their independence during the Revolution and have
since been restrained by force of arms to adopt Communism. They
accordingly see in the restoration of the political independence of
these nations the best answer to the Communist menace to freedom. This
viewpoint has been expressed by Professor Roman Smal-Stocki, and by
James Burnham, formerly of the Department of Philosophy of New York
University, who in all his writings has stressed the need to eliminate
the new Russian Communism.
A further requirement of this in a historical survey is expressed by a
Russian in speaking of the failure of the anti-Communist movements
during the Civil Wars:
Those who were adverse to the new (Communist) regime could thus be
divided into two very different groups; one comprising the
property-owning classes (who had been deprived of their all by the
Bolsheviks), the officers, the civil servants and all those devoted
to the ideals of the Russian State as constituted before the October
Revolution; the other, the national separatist groups, which desired
complete separation from Russia. It is easy to see that, no matter
how antagonistic these two groups might be to Communism, their aims
were absolutely dissociated. The unity of the Russian State could
only be reestablished in one of two ways: either by a restoration of
the Monarchy or by federation. Neither alternative appealed to the
anti-Bolshevik groups; and this circumstance explains the absence of
cooperation in the Civil War which broke out in many parts of the
country in 1918. It must be noted also, that the majority of the
population, the peasantry, stood entirely aloof from the activities
of both groups, and remained during the initial stages of the Civil
War absolutely neutral.[43]
With the practical elimination of the monarchist influences, the line is
still drawn with the greatest bitterness between the so-called Russian
democratic elements who insist upon the unity of Russia and the
representatives of the non-Russian peoples, especially the Ukrainians,
Baltic, Caucasian and Turkestanian nations. During the first post-war
years this latter tendency was little regarded in the American
universities and even now is less well represented than it should be;
but recent years have seen the publication of several studies such as
John Reshetars’s _Ukrainian Revolution_ and John A. Armstrong’s
_Ukrainian Nationalism_ (1939–1943).
The same division can be seen in the distribution of aid, in the early
years, of the work of the East European Fund, Inc., which was created by
the Ford Foundation and has done much valuable work. In its later years
it has given more money to aid in the preparation and publication of
works by Ukrainian, Byelorussian and other scholars and is publishing a
series of Ukrainian texts, either original works or books suppressed by
the Soviet government. But all of these publishing activities fall far
short of the work of the Chekhov Publishing House which has issued over
100 Russian books and received for this, grants (up to 1954) totaling
$1,238,000. However, on the average, as shown by the Fund’s report for
1954, the grants to the several Ukrainian and Byelorussian
(Whiteruthenian) scholarly and relief institutions have never been more
than a third, at most, of that contributed for similar Russian purposes,
in spite of its stated position of refraining from “favoring or
supporting any single Russian political grouping.” The report shows how
the Fund has tended however to see more value in the Russian projects
than in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian (Whiteruthenian).[44]
Gradual changes of attitude can also be noted in the American-supported
publications of the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich, which
is intended as a means for assistance to refugee scholars from the USSR,
and in the various American radio and other organizations intended to
aid in the fight against Communism, such as the American Committee for
Liberation from Bolshevism. It is to be noted also in the policy of
George Kennan, formerly of the State Department and now connected with
the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who is
considered an outstanding American authority on the USSR. His entire
policy of “containment” has long been based on the same idea of Russian
unity as expressed by his uncle, George Kennan (See Chapter III).
To supplement these and similar tendencies in the study of the satellite
states menaced by Communism, there has been established in New York
another series of organizations to secure American help, to furnish
scholarly opportunities for displaced scholars from the countries
liberated after World War I and to assist in training new students. This
is the Mid-European Studies Center. Its counterparts in Europe are Radio
Free Europe and in the university field in the United States, the
Mid-European Studies Program at Columbia University. This is more or
less on the pattern of the Russian Institute and it is but one example
of the efforts that are being made to develop interest in the culture of
the satellite states, which, save for the efforts of their compatriots
in the United States, have been largely neglected.
A point often raised regarding studies in this area is the limitation
placed upon them by the American distrust of Communism which has
expressed itself in many Congressional investigations as well as the
public and private attempts to root out from the various important
fields open or secret Communists or fellow-travellers. This point is
raised by Professor James F. Clarke of the University of Indiana:[45]
In more recent times a similar blind emotional reaction to Communism
as well as partisan evaluations of the Soviet Union have constituted
a threat to the free and rational expansion of East European
studies. Today, college students, teachers, and administrators
interested in the area dominated by Communism, while they may not
yield to anti-Communist hysterics, must at the same time heed its
potential effect on parents, taxpayers, legislators, trustees and
employers.
It is the opinion of the present writer that such arguments serve merely
to cover the failure of the scholars to interpret the complications of
the Soviet mode of thought to an American audience. The Aesopian
language in which so much of the current Communist propaganda is
couched, both for home and foreign consumption, and the belief that
truth is what is best at the moment for the Communist Party, have laid a
responsibility upon students of Eastern Europe, a burden not borne by
the more established subjects where the sources are less subject to
deliberate falsification. In addition to this, certain men who followed,
during World War II, the tendency to gloss over the cruelties of the
Soviet Union on behalf of mutual understanding and a misinterpreted
liberalism now find it difficult to disavow some of their most
tendentious writings. This by no means implies that they are either
Communists or fellow-travellers but they deliberately closed their eyes
to unpleasant situations, and now shrink from admitting the full truth.
As we have noted above, few, if any, of the outstanding scholars of
Slavic have accepted Communist ideas. The burden of Communist
infiltration in the past, and in the present, has been in departments
and subjects that might be considered most immune to them, especially
some of the natural sciences which have only recently become subjects
for international intrigue and spying. For this reason, the fears of
being labeled a Communist are far less vital than the pressure that has
been exerted at many different periods to present Communism as a liberal
doctrine that is in harmony with American ideals. It is this misplaced
liberalism that has been responsible for what the author of the article
quoted calls “anti-Communist hysterics.”
In addition to this, any objective study of the Communist-dominated
world is rendered impossible, if the supplemental goal is to promote
mutual understanding. This of course is an object of study when the
system of two distinct peoples is founded upon the same general
principles, and when words are used on both sides with similar meanings.
In a study of the Communist world, far more can be effected by a
rigorous emphasis on the differences than can be gained by soft-pedaling
and concealing them.
Another important factor that has worked against the increase of
students in the East European field has been the nature of the
opportunities which are offered to students. Immediately after the
liberation of the Slavic countries, after World War I, there seemed to
be a chance that students who acquired some knowledge of Slavic could
put it to use in their ordinary vocations. Those opportunities for
employment abroad that loomed so large in the calculations of students
of Spanish proved to be conspicuously absent in view of Communist
actions.
The spurt that occurred after World War II came to an end when the Iron
Curtain descended over almost the entire Slavic world, at least so far
as the average student was concerned. Men who had received some
instruction while in the Armed Services were able to take advantage of
the GI Bill of Rights and continue their studies. Yet most very soon
found that unless they intended to become real specialists, they would
not have the opportunity to use their knowledge.
The colleges and universities needed more men in view of the widespread
conviction that Russian, especially, was a proper and necessary subject.
Yet the field was relatively limited and did not require many
generations of post-graduate students to adequately staff the
departments. The chief opportunity besides teaching was government
service and this absorbed the greatest number. But, for those who did
not care for government work the range of opportunities soon became
restricted.
Most of these men and women, who are today specializing actively, are
persons who have received fellowships of some kind or value from one or
another of the larger foundations (the Rockefeller, Carnegie Corporation
and the Ford Foundation). As in other branches of scholarship, and even
the sciences, or those humanistic subjects which almost insure teaching
positions, these fellowships and scholarships play a more important part
in the economic life of the graduate student than ever before and any
increase or decrease in them is reflected almost immediately in the
number of students. The result has been a steady but perceptible drop in
graduate students during the past years. This has not been a bad sign in
reality, even though it may superficially seem a lack of interest.
We can be very sure, the world and human nature being what it is, that
there will be no such reaction against foreign languages as there was
during and after World War I. There are already signs that the number of
students has dropped to the point where it will remain stationary, or
from which it will perhaps rise slightly, during the next years.
The study of Slavic and East European subjects has followed a very
definite pattern in the last ten years with its shifts of emphasis
reflecting the changes that have taken place in that part of the globe.
It has followed political and economic relationships of the United
States and we can be confident that it will continue to do so.
Thus, since the beginning of World War I, the picture of Slavic and East
European studies in the United States has changed markedly. The
prospects today are far brighter than they ever have been. The
foundations have been laid and it only remains to build a superstructure
to fit into American life and at the same time present a consistent and
coherent picture of what that American life, and Slavic studies, really
need. The first period of test is over. Now is the time to present
Slavic scholarship to the American public and the scholarly world in
such a form that it can be assimilated and incorporated in the
intellectual life of the nation, and at the same time take account of
the possibilities offered by the large section of the population with
Slavic traditions.